Go With the F.L.O.

Welcome to my page devoted to Frederick Law Olmsted aka F.L.O. In the course of researching an Olmsted biography, forthcoming from Da Capo Press, I’m visiting a number of F.L.O.’s sites around the country. And I’ll be using this space to provide regular posts.

Olmsted had a mammoth career as a writer, abolitionist, Civil War hero, and pioneering environmentalist. He’s best known for more than 50 landscape architecture projects, everything from parks to university campuses to the grounds of several mental institutions. Following his wildly peripatetic footsteps is quite a task, but I’m making an effort to trace the trail of this American visionary. Hope you’ll enjoy these dispatches.

Visiting Buffalo to see the work of Olmsted and Vaux. They designed five of this city’s parks. Amazing thing is, 131 years after they first began planning them, not only do these parks still exist, but they remain vital places.